Scor­pio News

  

July–September 1987 – Volume 1. Issue 3.

Page 33 of 67
  1. Set up s correctly configured SYS.ENV file.
  2. Create a simple list of files to be installed, using an editor. This file should be given a name with an extension .INS. (A ZCPR3.INS file is included on the Z3 disks, but it does not include the .COM files on Sig. Vol. 200. Neither does it allow for any renaming. e.g. I prefer to call MCOPY.COM – COPY.COM.).
  3. Put the files to be installed, SYS.ENV, Z3INS.COM and the .INS file in one user area, and issue the command –Z3SINS SYS.ENV XXXX.INS.

The files named in the file XXXX.INS will be installed for the current data as held in SYS.ENV.

This completes the discussion on some of the devious ways in which one can implement the Z3 system. I hope that those of you out there who have not tried Z3 are encouraged to have a go. The results are well worth it. I have heard that there may be further developments of Z3 that may include bank switching and multi tasking, but I have no details.

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Appendix A. Typical BIOS modifications.

This part could be in the equates section of your BIOS source, if you have it. It assumes Z3 segments end buffers start at 0F200H and occupy RAM to 0FFFFH. Address 0F200H is where the Z3 area starts in my system. Yours could be different. The same applies to the other addresses.

The Warm Boot Jump must be found. The code below assumes your BIOS has the Cold Boot routines in the BIOS workspace area, where they will be overlaid when the system is running. The Warm Boot routines are usually located near the start of the BIOS. Examine the First two jumps in the jump table at the start of the BIOS (normally 17 jump instructions) to get the Cold and Warm boot routine start Addresses. Note that the jump to WBOOT1 found near the end of the cold boot routines as shown below will probably not be to the start of the Warm boot routines as found from the second jump table address, but some tens of bytes into the Warm boot routines.

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